An objection has been filed over Hawaii County Council member Sue Lee Loy’s candidacy for the state House District 2 seat and her registration to vote in the district.
The six petitioners — three of whom are her sisters-in-law — contend that Lee Loy still lives in a Panaewa Hawaiian House and Farm Lots residence at 498 Auwae Road, which is in District 3.
According to county tax records, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands lessee for the property is Lee Loy’s estranged husband, retired Hawaii Police Department Detective Ian Lee Loy, who filed for divorce in February.
The petitioners are Bridget Bales, Maureen Namaka Rawlins and Hedwig Nakoolani Warrington — who are sisters of Ian Lee Loy — plus Eva E. Naniole, Janice Pualani K. Kahoohanohano and Caroline R.P. “Pohai” Montague-Mullins.
The petition was filed Monday with both the state Office of Elections and the Office of the County Clerk, who oversees elections and voting for the Big Island.
Scott Nago, state elections chief, has five working days to decide whether Sue Lee Loy can run for office, and County Clerk Jon Henricks will decide her status as a registered voter for this year’s elections.
If Nago disqualifies Lee Loy from appearing on the ballot, his next move will be to file a complaint in Third Circuit Court no later than the seventh day after the objection to Lee Loy’s candidacy was filed.
Only two individuals, both Democrats, have filed election papers for House District 2 representing Hilo — Lee Loy and Tanya Yamanaka Aynessazian, who has a long history as an administrator of local nonprofit organizations.
Bales, who lives at 510 Auwae Road, next door to the Lee Loy house, said the petition to remove her from the ballot and from District 2’s voting rolls is “not a family feud, at all.”
“The issue is, quite frankly, a simple one. What Sue is doing is hewa. It’s hewa, it’s wrong, and it’s illegal,” Bales said.
Bales said she felt “an obligation” to file her challenge and objection after the publication May 31 of an article in Civil Beat in which Rep. Richard Onishi, who has occupied the District 2 seat since 2012, announced his intention to not seek reelection.
Lee Loy, who has served since 2016 as the council member for District 3, can’t seek reelection to the council because of term limits.
“When I read the Civil Beat article about her moving from her District 3 residence — which I am the immediate neighbor of that — into District 2, I knew that to be absolutely not true, because I observe it. I have security cameras that capture it,” Bales said. “… And I thought it was terrible that she would say she moved from her residence at 498 Auwae Road in April. I know that is not true.
“I think the petition lays out a very compelling case as to why she cannot be considered a resident of District 2.”
Bales submitted a two-page, single-spaced typed list of dates and times for alleged comings and goings of Lee Loy at the Auwae Road home between April 1 and May 31. Bales said she has video evidence to back the list. The list also includes alleged dates and times of Lee Loy mowing the lawn at the Auwae Road home, school bus arrivals to pick up and drop off Lee Loy’s son, and dates of Facebook campaign posts by Lee Loy during trips to Japan and Mariposa, Calif.
Lee Loy, who used the Auwae Road address on her candidacy filing, said, “It’s pretty common where people have a residence address and a different mailing address.”
“I plan on replying to the memo with more than sufficient evidence to prove my residency and my voter registration,” Lee Loy told the Tribune-Herald.
Lee Loy said her residence is in Waiakea Uka, but she is keeping the address confidential for the purposes of voter registration under Hawaii Revised Statutes 11-14.5, which allows the chief elections officer or county clerk to provide a voter privacy if it is determined that the disclosure of the residence address “would result in an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy or expose the person or a member of the person’s family to risk of bodily harm.”
Ian Lee Loy pleaded no contest in 2020 to third-degree assault, with the victim being the council member. He was allowed to defer his plea, and his conviction was later expunged from his record after completing terms of his sentence, including a domestic violence intervention class.
In addition, both parties to the divorce case, which has yet to be decided, are currently subject to a restraining order.
“I’ve moved and I moved months ago, as it relates to my mental health, my safety (and) what works best for my family,” Sue Lee Loy said. “I think exhibits contained within that petition challenging my residency highlights the amount of obsession and, for me, uncomfortable living environment that I’ve had to endure because of those petitioners.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
